The structural nature of concrete and steel are fairly well understood, and we see failures associated with them often enough. Mass timber has the further issue of being on a learning curve.
No material has been found, traditional or not, that is exempt from poor design and/or construction, but of course any early failures of a mass timber project will doom it for years to come.
If anything, I suspect the early mass timber projects will be over-specified due to lack of experience with the materials and techniques. Eventually, though, somebody will swap out a vendor, or make a last minute design change (Surfside condominium), or have sloppy or incompetent or bribed oversight.
Overlooked, or left out of the conversation: most of these products are engineered products, often as much laminate (glue) as wood, with its’ own carbon footprint. And this is not new ~ we’ve been making “plywood” for at least a couple hundred years. As an Old Logger and longtime builder it certainly fascinates me and I have had opportunity to walk one work-in-progress BUT! … there’s not enough wood left out there to do this at scale. These are vanity projects; they’ll probably stand for hundreds of years but it’s sustainable in the long run. I’ll be seeing this one the next time I fly home for a few days
The structural nature of concrete and steel are fairly well understood, and we see failures associated with them often enough. Mass timber has the further issue of being on a learning curve.
No material has been found, traditional or not, that is exempt from poor design and/or construction, but of course any early failures of a mass timber project will doom it for years to come.
This was a design/engineering problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYcs-_tdPGI
This was an everyone-screwed-up problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS5XxwKIx-U
If anything, I suspect the early mass timber projects will be over-specified due to lack of experience with the materials and techniques. Eventually, though, somebody will swap out a vendor, or make a last minute design change (Surfside condominium), or have sloppy or incompetent or bribed oversight.
My partially informed mostly opinion is this is a lousy lousy idea for a range of reasons, several of which are fairly obvious.
Overlooked, or left out of the conversation: most of these products are engineered products, often as much laminate (glue) as wood, with its’ own carbon footprint. And this is not new ~ we’ve been making “plywood” for at least a couple hundred years. As an Old Logger and longtime builder it certainly fascinates me and I have had opportunity to walk one work-in-progress BUT! … there’s not enough wood left out there to do this at scale. These are vanity projects; they’ll probably stand for hundreds of years but it’s sustainable in the long run. I’ll be seeing this one the next time I fly home for a few days
The future of building is digging …
NOT sustainable in the long run … friggin’ fingers
Well, timber is brown. I guess you could paint it.